“We’ve been very happy with ISA Server 2004 and there’s been no problem since we installed it.”


Richard Bagnall

Managing Director

Metrica

Business Needs

Metrica is a media analysis and consulting firm that helps many clients including government agencies, big businesses and charities to measure the effectiveness of their PR function.

As a result, they “need to be party to their confidential business strategies,” says managing director, Richard Bagnall.

In addition, Metrica distributes its reports electronically from a webserver using a completely interactive tool called My Metrica. This allows clients to interrogate their data, for example to see, for example, what a particular journalist has been saying about them or how favourable their coverage has been.

In order to keep this information secure, Metrica stores it on a server in their offices rather than contracting it out to a hosting company. This means that they need to have top line security to protect their clients’ information.

“Lots of people, including perhaps our competitors, would be interested in what we do and how we do it. We’re the leading company in our field,” says Bagnall. 

Another problem came to light a few years ago. Since the company has lots of bandwidth (to allow clients high speed access) their servers are attractive targets for internet criminals who want to set up rogue websites or mail relays.

Before EJC IT took over management of their servers, another IT company had installed a new router without adequately protecting it with a firewall. The result: “A French kid got onto our server and attempted to use it as a distribution server for his mp3s” says Bagnall.

Needless to say Metrica couldn’t tolerate any possible security breaches which is why they appointed EJC IT to manage their systems.

Metrica’s 24/7 service for its clients presented another problem – finding an ISP that could cost effectively guarantee that their connections would always work. After all, even 99.9% reliability means 8 hours a year of downtime. Consequently, they were looking for a system that could give a 100% uptime guarantee.

Solution

The objective, according to Bagnall, was to put best practices into place. EJC IT have been looking after Metrica’s server systems for nearly four years, making sure each new development followed best practice guidelines.

According to Gavin Barkey, technical director at EJC IT, the 120-employee company has “the IT systems of a company that is far larger.” For example, they have a high-tech, air-conditioned server room containing eight servers.


The whole system has been put together following Microsoft guidelines for a medium-sized business, separating infrastructure, storage and line of business. All the servers run Windows Server 2003 and they have a dedicated firewall appliance which runs ISA Server 2004.

Benefits

The ISA server, with additional plug-in software, allows Metrica to use two ISPs simultaneously. If one goes down temporarily, all the traffic is redirected using the other connection. When both lines work, traffic is balanced between the two to ensure optimal performance,

The web server is protected by ISA Server 2004 which insulates it from both outsiders on the internet and users inside the company. The system also allows secure connections for remote email users.

Like PR, if there’s no bad news in IT security, everyone’s relaxed. “We’ve been very happy with it,” says Bagnall, “and there’s been no problem since we installed the system.”

Read More

Find out more about how Microsoft ISA Server can secure and protect your network with EJC IT and Celestix MSA and WSA Appliances.  Click here

Find out about the EJC IT Outsourced Support and Management Service.  Click

Find out more about Metrica, their services, clients and work.  Click here